UP CIDS seeks to manage research issues that are important for the country, support research by the university and scholars, gather research funds from public and private entities, and publish and disseminate research results. It has various programs grouped into clusters: education and capacity-building; development; and social, political, and cultural. These clusters conduct research and activities that contribute to the attainment of the center’s objectives.

The Center regularly publishes monographs, discussion papers, and policy briefs to support its goal of disseminating research results. It also releases annually the peer-reviewed Philippine Journal of Public Policy: Interdisciplinary Development Perspectives. This journal “promotes the broadening of discourse on public policy to accommodate more dynamic contemporary policy realities in the Philippines as well as in developing and/or industrialized countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia.”

As an academic enterprise, ARC conducts research, publication, product development, teaching, and training, among others, in different areas of education. The foci of its research are on assessment, measurement, and reporting and credentialing of complex human competencies. By conducting activities that are in line with these, ARC is able to promote the use of various evidences in order to understand how learning progresses and utilize this information to plan learning interventions and develop innovative ways to make learning possible for a wide range of capabilities. Through its various outputs and collaborations, it is able to contribute to solving issues in education and training systems in the world.

In 2011, the Assessment Research Centre carried out a curriculum comparison study for the Philippines Basic Education Sector conducted under the auspices of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – Australian Aid. Findings from this work were reported in an Analysis of the Basic Education of the Philippines: Implications for the K-12 Education Program, a joint study by Australian Aid-University of Melbourne and SEAMEO INNOTECH.